


Won't Be Afraid

by Silent_So_Long



Series: otpprompts [19]
Category: Rammstein
Genre: M/M, Sexual Content, Tumblr Prompt, Tumblr: otpprompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 05:12:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3434816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silent_So_Long/pseuds/Silent_So_Long
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richard, Paul and a declaration of love</p>
            </blockquote>





	Won't Be Afraid

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the song “Stand By Me” by Ben E. King, a song which I have loved for years. 
> 
> This story was inspired by the following lovely prompt left upon tumblr’s otpprompts: _Imagine person A lightly tracing “I love you” over and over again on person B’s back, assuming that person B is asleep. When person A is lying on their back, getting ready to sleep, person B moves closer and wraps their arms around person A, whispering softly, “I love you too.” Bonus if that’s the first time person A has ever declare their love for person B._

Richard yawned his out of the bathroom, before he turned the light out with a satisfying little click. He shuffled his way into the bedroom, feeling goose-pimples course their way across his arms as he did so; the night was a chill one, with rain battering against the windowpanes and wind gusting at the walls of the apartment building. Richard shivered and scrubbed at his arms with both hands, before he carefully closed the bedroom door with a quiet little snick. Paul seemed to be asleep, laying on his side with his back turned towards the door and therefore also to Richard. His breathing was slow and regular, bedcovers moving slightly with the movement of his breathing; Richard couldn’t stop the amused smile from crossing his face, even though he wasn’t entirely sure what was so amusing about the other man being asleep. 

He shuffled his way across to the bed and slipped carefully beneath the covers, and tried not to dislodge them from Paul’s body. The sheets and the blankets over him kept the worst of the night’s chill away, yet it couldn’t break the spell of the wind’s mournful song, nor block out the sound of the rain. Richard settled further down into bed, feeling warmer already, helped undoubtedly by the closeness of Paul; the other man was warm in his sleeping state and had, as yet, to even notice that Richard had slipped beneath the covers. 

Richard looked at the back of his partner’s head, outline showing dimly in the glow of the nightlight that shone a soft orange by the doorway; that light was there more to show the way in the darkness than through any need to chase said darkness away. Neither man needed such safe-guards against childish nightmares against monsters, after all. 

Richard could just about hear the sounds of Paul’s breathing over the noise of the storm outside, quiet and soft and relaxed in the bedroom’s gloom; that made Richard feel a little sad, inexplicably. He wanted to talk, to whisper ridiculous things beneath the covers with the other man, to have Paul grin at him and to scrunch his nose in that cute way he always had whenever he found something particularly funny. He wanted to feel the other man’s hands upon him, to feel Paul warm and real against his own palms, to have him respond when he kissed him, to hold him close in loving snuggles, to perhaps make love long into the night.

Richard was struck then by how much he’d grown used to having Paul in his apartment since he’d moved in; already, he couldn't remember what it had been like to live alone. Paul had taken his place in Richard’s place as much as he had in his heart that Richard keenly felt the pain of imagined loss if Paul ever chose to leave. It was a scenario that Richard hoped would never come to pass. 

He reached out, hand hovering over Paul’s arm, fingers aligned with the bold strokes of Paul’s tattoo, but he did not touch him, too frightened of disturbing the other man whilst he was asleep. Really, Richard knew that he should be asleep himself, yet his mind seemed determined to keep him wakeful that night.

Instead, Richard felt a little overwhelmed by an emotion he’d certainly felt whilst with Paul but had never truly expressed in words, merely through gestures, through cuddles and kisses, through gifts given and notes exchanged; the emotion that Richard was feeling he knew was undoubtedly love, and the more that he examined his love for the other man, the more it became natural, welcome, not quite the scary or alien prospect as it might once have seemed in his youth. It was as though adult years had given him maturity, and the ability to not be afraid of something that was beautiful, necessary to life itself.

He eased his hand away without ever touching Paul, yet still, he could not resist tracing light patterns against the other man's back, across a warm expanse of bared skin; for a moment his outstretched finger did little more than connect the dots between the freckles that peppered their way across Paul’s back, then his finger seemed to move in sympathetic echo of his earlier thoughts. He couldn't stop tracing the same sentiment against the other man’s back, a simple message with a weight of meaning behind it. The words he traced were - _I love you_ \- over and over again. It made his heart ache a little to know that Paul was too caught up in sleep to realize just what Richard was trying to tell him. He felt guilty for never having actually voiced his love for the other man aloud before; briefly he wondered quite why that was. 

He sighed and drew his hand away; despite the fact that he knew it was a monumental gesture on his part, it was futile whilst Paul himself was not awake to know of it. He turned onto his back and stared up at the dim ceiling above him, blinking owlishly in the vague orange glow that washed over everything. Outside, the storm seemed unwilling to break and to fold away to nothing; instead, it grew stronger, rain and wind battering against the building in an elemental war that was quite unsettling to the sleepless Richard.

Beside him, he felt the bed move and dip beneath a sudden transference of weight; Paul’s sigh startled him a little. It seemed as though Paul had not been asleep at all. He felt the familiar weight of Paul’s arm sliding across his abdomen, and the other man’s head settling against his shoulder; briefly he felt the faint caress of Paul’s lips ghosting against his skin, leaving behind a faint trace of warmth that spread its way through Richard’s body.

“I love you, too, my darling,” Paul murmured, against Richard’s arm, voice sleepy and slow, yet his words no less meaningful for it.

Richard smiled at that, somewhat gratified for the fact that Paul had been aware of the message that he was trying to tell him, to imprint in his very skin by the tracery of fingers against the freckles of his back. He didn’t say anything, however, merely turned his head, and tried to press an awkward kiss against Paul’s mouth; the angle was wrong, yet that was changed when Paul tilted his head back a little to help him. Their mouths connected in the dimness, warm and solid and real. Richard slid his arm around Paul’s waist, hand shoring up against the same patch of skin he’d traced his love into, as Paul settled closer still, one leg stretched languidly over Richard’s thighs in one slide of easy movement. Richard deepened the kiss, and felt a sudden surge of interested arousal dousing through him; he wanted Paul so much it was like an ache had set up camp in his abdomen to spread throughout his body, unquenchable unless Paul himself would quench it.

Paul obviously had the same ideas, the same wants and needs, for his hand slid down Richard’s body, fingers soon coming to rest in a curled hold around Richard’s partial erection. Richard sighed his encouragement into Paul’s kisses, as the other man slowly began to stroke him, movements becoming rougher, more needy as Paul’s own arousal grew at the contact.

Richard nudged against Paul’s body, gently jostled him onto his back, hand reaching blindly for the lube that they’d abandoned hours before upon the bedside cabinet. He missed, fumbled it a second time, before, on the third try, his fingers connected with the bottle and grasped it, as though it was his one last lifeline to the last happiness of the day. It suddenly seemed very important to Richard to show Paul just how much he loved him, to make love to him one more time before the day grew old and was born anew after midnight.

He uncapped the lube, squeezed the liquid mostly unseen against his fingers; he did not need light to know where to touch on Paul’s body, where to slide against and open, where best to produce the best moans, the loudest groans, the choked exhalations of his name whilst he prepared his lover for all that was about to come. His movements were desperately slow, each one designed to draw out the tension, to build up need and want and love, until Paul cursed, voice deeper with his lust as he pleaded for release, for Richard himself.

Richard smiled in the dimness and eased away, to apply lube against his own erection in a cool deft slide of fingers against heated skin, before he settled atop the other man, Paul’s legs a framing bracket for his own body. He guided himself into Paul with an unashamed cry of need, loosed before he was even aware he was going to voice his own desire, echoed by a relieved moan from Paul. Richard began to move, every thrust slow and languid, Paul’s hands a roving pressure against his body, every touch designed to encourage him, speaking without the need for words of trust, of love, of such abject want and need that Richard almost could have cried with the weighty simplicity of it all.

Paul’s body was a responsive warmth beneath him, hips arching up to meet his own, desperate groans growing louder in the dimness, loud enough to almost drown out the continuing wind outside; it seemed for one brief moment as though that storm had somehow found its way inside to settle in both of their bodies. 

Richard could hold on no longer and he came with a sigh of Paul’s name, a whispered declaration of love uttered swiftly afterwards, relief soon following on the tail-end of it that he’d finally said the words aloud. Paul came between them soon after, desperate, vulnerable cries arcing up and breaking about Richard, as they rode out the last of their shared climaxes. Then Richard eased away and Paul followed soon after, arms a constant weight around his body as the other man snuggled contentedly up against him. 

“I love you,” Richard said, again and it was the most important thing that he’d ever told Paul.

“I love you too,” Paul returned before falling silent.

There was nothing else that either man could say, as all had been said in that one instant that needed to be said. Richard smiled again and curled into Paul’s warmth, as the other man pulled the covers over them both. The storm outside continued on unabated, yet the storm inside had run its course and had calmed; both men were left in the still silence that always followed shared love, contented that that they needed nothing and no one else but each other.


End file.
